Thunder and Lies
by Viraaja
Summary: Too late Thor discovers the motivations behind all of Loki's lies.


**Author's Note:** I own nothing, and a bit of warning- implied character death.

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><p>Thunder rolled through clouds heavy with rain, catching on their bloated bowls and breaking loose a storm of water and light. Upon the city it fell- sluicing down steel and stone, the structures soaking up it's offer with the thankfulness of a weary victim, washing the blood from it's bricks and the cinders from it's still smoldering ash. In the distance lighting struck. Cold and blue, it lit the horizon in a silhouette of carnage, an instant of nightmarish reality that the darkness had so far done well to hide. Over the fallen city pulsed the crackle of released electricity. Through rubble-strew streets it travelled, hissing and weaving it's way like some coiling serpent coming to snake it's way round it's master- forever drawn to what was both it's source and it's center.<p>

Thor welcomed the power. Thor shook with it. He breathed it in deep. His body trembled with it while his mind stilled into it's ease. It was hindering that _something_ that was threatening to break loose, subduing a mania at the edge of being released. Each step the god took shook with the force of gravity itself- the air around him weightless in the static of an impending apex. And as the world fell into hyperfocus and Thor laid eyes upon the crater before him, he had convinced himself that it was this building force that made his teeth grind and his fists clench.

Not the fear.

Not this unknown _terror_.

In a broken pile on a broken street lay his broken brother. A tarnish of black against already dark asphalt, a crumpled form whose only sign of life was a writhing twist of shadow.

Not _dead_. Not _yet._

Thor felt his body root in place, felt his feet refusing to draw closer as his heart seized at the sight of Loki's fate. The fate he had dealt him. The fate Thor had seen fit to bestow upon his own _brother. _Rain soaked him now, gathering in his hair and streaming down his face. Around him the drops broke and split upon the unyielding city surface, forming a mist as the cold water met warm stone. Mjolnir stuck embedded in the impression with which it and Loki had landed, it's chiseled form catching each flash of lightning, it's handle reaching skyward, waiting for it's wielder to reclaim it. Thor's eyes, however, could look only at the fallen form of his brother.

"Loki…" he rasped into the wind and the rain. So soft were his words that Thor hardly knew if he'd spoken at all. But the pile of shadows shifted to reveal a slit of pale skin and a pair of fierce green eyes. Even wounded and broken his brother still held onto that infuriating stubbornness, that never-ending resistance. Even as the spread of blood that was quickly pooling beneath the Liar's body laid bare his dire state, his brother struggled to hide his secrets. But no glamour left to him could conceal his battered body. Thor knew that for all their strength, not even the gods were immortal.

"Brother," Loki spoke with venomous spite, "-tears for me? I'm flattered." Because somehow his brother knew his heart better than than himself. Thor could only meet Loki's eyes, because admitting the truth was impossible, not after _this- _not after what he'd done. But that which went unspoken never went entirely unhidden. Not with Thor. He had never been a good liar, had never had a reason to become one. The truth had alway served him well, so how had he been so blind- so _fooled_ by his own brother?

Loki's death had never been what he wanted. No matter how many times his brother had instigated a fight between them, had drawn him out to face him and confront him and meddle in his every last affair, Thor had never wished him death. With the wisdom of the Gods before him he had always reserved a part of himself for that day Loki would be 'brother' again. Until tonight, that is. Tonight Loki had finally convinced him that his defeat was the necessary absolution to all of the lies and tricks and maliciously wrought mischief. Tonight Loki had finally won, even though he lay broken and dying at Thor's very feet.

His feelings must have been plain, because Loki was now writhing with something other than pain. His body twisted and shook, small wet gasping breaths cackling in the mimic of laughter. "Oh, my dear Thor," a grin spilt that pale face, revealing sharp white teeth speckled with blood, "how is it that my noble brother, who even now in the glory of a battle won, cannot celebrate his own victory?" And then Loki was struggling to push himself up from the ground, hands sliding along broken glass and stone and rain. It was this motion that revealed the wound, the source of the blood that was so freely flowing. Loki's midsection lay torn and open, his insides shredded and spilled along the pavement below him, the remaining wreckage wrought by his own hammer, his own hand.

The sight was what snapped Thor's mind out of it's icy prison- the fuel to allow those last few steps that brought him to his knees by his brother's side, hands reaching to grab slighter, weaker shoulders, "Don't move, brother, you'll only make it worse." And his words sounded pathetic even to himself, because they both knew there was only one way things could be worse, and they'd reach that moment soon enough.

Loki seized under his touch, drawing away with what strength he had left, something other than malice finally breaking through his facade. "Don't touch me!" he gasped, but Thor didn't listen. He brought his brother to him instead, wrapping his arms around him and securing him against his chest, bowing his head over so as to provide some respite from the rain he found he couldn't stop. Loki was cold to the touch. Even without the water and wind to chill the layers of armor and robes Thor could feel the ice that lay beneath it all. The truth of his brother's heritage had always been a distant thought in Thor's mind. He now realized only too late what it had meant to his brother- How Loki believed that the revelation that their blood was not the same invalidated the fact that they had lived as brothers for as long as either remembered, century after century. Thor had never thought like that, never could lie to himself like that. And that's what it was, just another lie fogging the truth that Loki has, was and always would be Thor's brother, birthrights and blood be damned.

The only one fooled by that lie had been Loki. It had drove him to madness.

It had drove him to seek out his own death.

"is this what you've always wanted, brother?" Thor asked as he hung his head low with guilt, brushing his lips against his brother's pale brow, hoping the rain would hide the tears that now freely fell from his eyes. His lips were light but his arms were strong, clutching Loki to him as if his physical strength could anchor his soul in place. His eyes tracing the sharp contours of his brother's familiar face, his trembling hand following in their wake.

Green eyes squeezed shut as Loki hissed out a soft "_Yes," _his face turning into Thor's touch. His rasping was now suddenly more desperate, his body clinging to Thor as tightly as Thor held onto him. How had his brother come to the point where he believed death had been his only answer. How had he failed his brother so horribly that he had allowed this fate to befall him? But there was another way in which Loki could interpret his brother's words, an answer to that _other_ question he had let himself give, one that meant so much more to him than Thor would ever know. Never could his brother realize that it was not death that he had always sought, but only this, only his love.

But that truth would have broken his Thor, and his brother couldn't fall like that. Loki wouldn't allow it, not now that he finally had _this_.

So he would hide the truth once last time, with one last lie.


End file.
